I was scanning through some books on children's literature, more specifically scholarship and criticism surrounding it, in the library this evening and found some interesting things. One book, Feeling Like a Kid, by Jerry Griswold, stated five main themes that coarsed through children's lit: Snugness (as in blanket forts and mole holes); Scariness (Little Red Riding Hood); Smallness (Stuart Little), Lightness (Peter Pan), Aliveness (Pinocchio). These, Griswold explained, are some emotions or observations that children associate with. One book, by Jack Zipes, said of Fairy Tales which completely, unequivocally disagrees with what I said below of the moral of the story being just that, "Fairy tales are not ageless, universal, and beautiful in and of themselves, and they are not the best therapy in the world for children. They are historical prescriptions, internalized, potent, explosive, and we acknowledge the power they hold over our lives by mystifying them." What I think he means by this is that, in another clarifying quote of his, fairy tales are "made to ligitmate or criticise the course of Western Civilizing process". Fairy tales change with the times, they are a type of subconscious social commentary (and I am sure we'll have plenty of Blog posts about Freud and the subconscious) which has a proufound effect on adult life, and they are ever changing, yet ever rendolent in our lives. As such, there are as we have seen, many different renditions of the same fairy tale in order to occupy a new and vacant social issue or more of present day. It, in a way, becomes a copy of a copy of a copy as in Plato's big problem with poetry as I mentioned below. We have Cinderella and we have the Gregory McGuire novels which have more socially pertinent plot points and endings, where maybe not everything happens happily ever after. Maybe someone has to die. There are movies where fairy tale figures are displaced into reality (Enchanted) and reality figures are placed into another world through some befuddling porthole (usually a Martin Lawrence film). Fairy tales (and other childrens media) are adapted to fit the social climate, and subvert it in many ways as well (Chicken Little "The Sky is Falling!!!). And why should this not somehow reach the adults? Over 90% of purchases made by parents are influenced by their kids. They are a marketing, money making jack pot (media wise)! And their attention span and reading level is comparable with that of most adults as well!
So tonight, Sam and I were walking around Movie Lovers and she suggested we get a fairy tale. We rented Penelope, with Christina Ricci and Drew Barrymore. I don't want to give any of it away and I highly suggest renting it. It had some great fairy tale puns in it; some political and social commentary; generic, repetitive, but lovable plot cliches; and it ended happily ever after! She used a two way mirror as her portal to see from inside of her fairy tale room to which she was imprisoned by her misguided mother to look out and view her possible suitors in a library/parlor filled with hundreds of first editions! And when it was over I wanted to watch it again. You also might want to read some reviews. There were some movie critics who were apparently upset by the fact that a "fairy tale" opened and ended with "once upon a time," and "happily ever after."
I had also read earlier today that fairy tales popularize the conflicts that we humans inherently have as moral animals. This got me to wondering whether or not the five main conflicts of Mythological Literature (learned from Dr. Sexson in Mythologies) can pertain, in some arbitrary way or another to children's lit. These conflicts are: woman v man, individual v. society, man v. god, young v. old, living v. dead. Can any one think of how these conflicts are embodied in children's literature? Who are the characters? Cinderella is young, and her step-mom is old, then you have the Fairy God Mother, the Society Ball which she must return from by the stoke of midnight, and the way she interacts with Prince Charming, and death is what presumably ensues if things do not work out "happily ever after". Can we add any other conflicts? Human v. Animal, perhaps?
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